Chapter 3 #2
How was I supposed to explain that I’d fallen in love with a man I barely knew—a man who rode with an MC everyone in town spoke about in lowered voices, a man who had made me feel alive and seen and wanted for the first time since Mom died—and then believed I’d watched him vanish in a massacre that left bodies strewn across the ground like garbage?
How was I supposed to explain that kind of loss to someone who would never understand why I’d been drawn to that world in the first place?
How was I supposed to tell him that I was pregnant and terrified and utterly convinced that staying in Lawton would put my baby in mortal danger—from people who might come looking for revenge, or answers, or blood?
That I ran because I didn’t know what else to do, because every instinct I had told me my child’s life depended on disappearing completely?
That I’d been a stupidly naive twenty-three-year-old girl, drowning in grief and fear and making impossible choices with no good way through them?
“There was—” I swallowed hard, my throat constricting painfully. “There was someone. He died. In the Diamondback Massacre. Seven years ago.”
My father’s expression shifted, confusion flickering across his weathered face before something darker settled in. “The clubhouse shooting?”
I nodded, my hands trembling so badly I had to clasp them together in my lap to keep them still. “I was involved with a member, and when it happened—when I heard the news on the radio—I just couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be here anymore. I couldn’t breathe in this town.”
“So you ran.” His voice was flat. Emotionless. The kind of tone that cut deeper than anger ever could.
“Yes.”
“Without telling me. Without telling your brother. Without giving us any indication that you were okay, that you were even alive.” Each word landed like a stone dropping into still water. “We thought—Christ, Lina.”
“I know.” Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, hot and insistent. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dad. But I didn’t know what else to do. I was scared, and I was alone, and I was carrying his child, and I just... I had to leave. I had to protect my baby.”
He stared at me for a long moment, his jaw tight, his eyes hard and unreadable in a way that reminded me painfully of all the times I had disappointed him before.
Then he looked away, his gaze fixing on the window, on the pale afternoon light filtering through the dusty blinds, illuminating the silence that stretched between us like an unbridgeable chasm.
“What have you been doing?” he asked finally, his voice quieter now. Resigned. “All these years. Where did you go?”
I took a shaky breath, trying to steady myself before the words came loose.
“San Francisco. I went to San Francisco. I finished law school. I passed the bar on my first try. I’m a criminal defense attorney.
Working for a great practice.” The words felt strange in my mouth, as if I were reciting the life of someone who only resembled me.
He turned back to me, surprise flickering across his face before he could hide it. “A lawyer?” There was something in his voice I couldn’t quite place. Disbelief, maybe, or pride, or some complicated mixture of both.
“Yes.” I swallowed hard, watching his expression carefully.
“You always wanted that,” he said softly, his voice taking on a distant quality, as if he were reaching back through the years. “Even when you were a kid. You always said you wanted to help people. To fight for them. To stand up for the ones who couldn’t stand up for themselves.”
I nodded, unable to speak around the lump in my throat. The fact that he remembered—that he’d carried that detail all these years—tightened something deep in my chest.
“And you’ve been there this whole time? In San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a moment, processing. Then: “A baby?”
I reached into my purse with trembling hands, pulled out my phone, unlocked it, and turned the screen toward him.
The photo showed Tatum at the park near our apartment, her dark hair caught in the wind, her face bright with laughter as she hung down from the monkey bars.
She was wearing her favorite purple dress—the one with the butterflies—and her eyes, those bright, searching eyes so much like her father’s, shone with pure, unguarded joy.
My father stared at the screen. For a long moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stared at the image of the little girl he’d never met, the granddaughter he hadn’t known existed.
Then, slowly, his expression softened. The anger eased. The hurt. The frustration. And for the first time since I’d walked into the room, he smiled. It was small. Tentative. But it was real.
“That’s—” His voice was thick. “That’s your daughter?”
“Yes.” I swiped to the next photo—Tatum at her kindergarten graduation, beaming in her little cap and gown. Then another—Tatum at the beach, building a sandcastle. Another—Tatum asleep on the couch, curled up with her favorite stuffed rabbit.
“Her name is Tatum,” I said softly. “Tatum Jane. She’s six. Almost seven.”
“She’s beautiful.” He reached out, his hand shaking slightly, and touched the screen with one finger, tracing the outline of Tatum’s face. “She looks just like you.”
“She does,” I agreed, my voice breaking. “She’s everything, Dad. She’s smart and funny and so full of life. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He looked up at me, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you let me know I had a granddaughter?”
“I was scared,” I admitted. “Scared of what you’d think. Scared of dragging you into the mess I’d made. Scared of all of it.”
He shook his head slowly, his gaze returning to the photos. “I would have helped you. You know that, don’t you? I would have been there. For both of you.”
“I know.” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I know that now. But at the time, I just... I couldn’t see past my own fear.”
He was quiet for a long moment, scrolling through the photos with careful, deliberate movements.
Then he looked up at me again, and this time there was something softer in his expression.
Something that looked dangerously close to forgiveness.
“I want to meet her,” he said. “Your Tatum. I want to meet my granddaughter.”
Relief flooded through me, so intense it made my knees weak.
“She’s here,” I said quickly. “In Lawton. She’s with Mrs. Patterson right now. I can bring her by tomorrow, if you want.”
“I want.” He smiled again, wider this time. “I definitely want.”
I nodded, unable to speak past the emotion clogging my throat.
The anger was still there. The hurt. Seven years of silence and unanswered questions. But underneath all of it, there was something else.
Love.
Complicated, bruised, imperfect love.
For now, that was enough.